Operated by the gunner onboard a snowspeeder, the harpoon, tipped with a fusion disk, would be fired at the leg of an ImperialAT-AT walker. The pilot of the snowspeeder would then make several rotations around the walker to wrap the flexisteel cable around its legs. The walker would then become ensnared and fall over, effectively neutralized. Harpoons and tow cables were able to bring down a few AT-ATs at Hoth and were the Alliance's most effective method of dealing with the lethal Imperial walkers.

Besides the harpoon and tow cables themselves, there were also some types of weapons, such as the tow-cable bomb, that were developed specifically for power harpoons in mind.[1]